Once beyond the encampment, he quickened his pace, and, fast and straight as an arrow flies, dashed on over the little hills due eastwards. For there, the Arabs had told him, "a bow shot off," "two stones' throw," "the length a man might ride while he said his 'La ilaha ill Allah!'"--ran the great river. Waking some two hours before from the profound sleep of boyhood, he had not been able to close his eyes again for the longing that came over him to look upon it. For this was "that ancient river," last of the mystic Four that watered the flowers of Eden, witness of ruined civilizations, survivor of dead empires, the old historic Euphrates. Not that all this was present to the mind of young John Grayson; but he had caught from his father, whose constant companion he was, a reflected interest in "places where things happened," which was transfigured by the glamour of a young imagination. On and on he went, for the wide, featureless, monotonous landscape deceived his eye, and the river was really much farther than he thought. He got amongst tall reeds, which sometimes hindered his view, though often he could see over them well enough--if there had been anything to see, except more reeds, mixed with a little rank grass--more low hills, and over all a cloudless, purple sky. The one point of relief was the dark spot in the distance, that meant, as he knew, the trees from which he had started. He thought two or three times of turning back, not from weariness, and certainly not from fear, except the fear that his father might wonder what had become of him. But, being a young Englishman, he did not choose to be beaten, and so he went on. At last there reached his ears what seemed a dull, low murmur, but what was in fact the never-ceasing sound of a great river on its way to the sea; while at the same time-- "The scent of water far away Upon the breeze was flung." He hurried on, now over a grassy place, now through tall, thick reeds, until at last, emerging from a mass of them, he found himself on the edge of a steep precipitous bank, and lo! the Euphrates rolled beneath him. He could have cried aloud in his surprise and disappointment. Was this indeed the great Euphrates--the grand, beautiful river he had come to see? Had this indeed flowed through Paradise?--this dull, muddy, most unlovely stream? Dark, dark it looked, as he stood and gazed down into its turbid waters. "Dark?" he said to himself, "no, it is not dark, it is _black_." And the longer he gazed the blacker and the drearier it grew.